Page 5 of The First Spark
Dali was a paradise, sure. But it was also a planet whose haughty nobles looked down on her, a planet that heard the nameHannoverand thought not of the Duchissa’s niece, but of the foreign emperor who’d slaughtered half the nobility in the war.
As silence stretched on, Kalie looked down at the floor. She hated this. She’d always been able to talk to Aunt Calida.
Ariah gathered her flowing skirt and stood. “I’ll give you two a minute.”
Her stilettos clicked away, and the closet doors slid open. She was probably rifling through luggage for one of her beloved romance novels.
Aunt Calida sighed. “Kalie…”
“I want to make a difference.” Her voice wavered. It was not strong, like Ariah’s, and it never would be.
“You can do that here.”
“It’s different. Dali is fine. The courts are fine. You don’t need an emissary, not like…” Children’s screams rang in Kalie’s ears, and when she closed her eyes, fires tore across a ravaged city. “I’ve seen holos of worlds like Belcar. That’swhere I’m needed, where I can help.”
“Marcus is going to fix all of that when he’s elected.”
“And I can helphim.”
“Dali is your home, sunshine.”
Is it?
Aunt Calida was her home. Lexie was her home. Ariah was her home. But Dali, where the nobles called her‘the Butcher’s daughter’? These days, it was no more her home than Father’s dark, foreign empire.
Kalie inhaled deeply, reigned in the words, and let them drop. As she always did.
“It’s not easy being the Duchissa. One day, Lexie will wear this crown, and she’ll need advisors she can count on. I’m not summoning you home to punish you. You’ve done incredible work for Marcus. But it’s my duty—I need you to…” Aunt Calida’s voice sounded strained, and she drew in a shuddering breath. “When Dali passes to Lexie, you must be standing behind her.”
Kalie frowned. “Of course I’ll be there for Lex, always, but she’s only four.”
Her cousin’s latest masterpiece lay on the glass table beside her holopad. Lex wouldn’t be writing charters or issuing decrees anytime soon—her newest book was a mess of scribbles and illegible words. Kalie’s heart warmed as she gazed at the mess of crayon and glitter.
The intercom blared twice, announcing the jump to a stargate and urging all passengers to take their seats. Motors whirred as darkshields lowered over her suite’s floor-to-ceiling viewports.
Aunt Calida’s holo flickered. Bolts of static shot through the image of her face, and her speech broke into garbled fragments. “—Lex—ready—speech is about to—love?—”
Static flooded through the comm. Kalie went rigid.
“Aunt Calida?”
The frigate shuddered, and a brilliant flash of light pulsed through the darkshields. Aunt Calida’s holo rippled, then vanished. The comm let out a soft chime. The call had dropped.
“Aunt Calida!”
As her heart lodged in her throat, Kalie fumbled with the buttons, trying to call her back. Holy Azura, something must’ve—no, no, no. “Ariah!”
“What happened?”
Kalie gestured to the vacant comm. “We were talking, and it just—it cut out,shecut out?—”
Ariah exhaled slowly as she dropped onto the couch beside her. “Breathe. We jumped to the stargate. You lost connection, that’s all.” The intercom beeped three times, the all-clear signal, and she pointed to the speaker. “See? Just the gate. We’ll drop in a few minutes to pick up the main route, and you can call her back then.”
Still, her heart wouldn’t stop racing.
Ariah thrust her wine glass into her hands. “You’re going to drive yourself mad, stressing like this.”
“She was talking about Lex wearing the crown.”
